


Pod Squad

by notpunkrock



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, everyone else is like mentioned but its about keith and lance, everyone is in their original lions, its just fluff, its not even that romantic, tbh idk when this takes place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 22:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15349761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notpunkrock/pseuds/notpunkrock
Summary: Bad mission, everyone's tired and grumpy and Keith and Lance are stuck together in a pod in the middle of a barren planet. Keith needs someone to talk to and Lance misses home.





	Pod Squad

The team had been deserted on a seemingly deserted planet after a mission gone, well not wrong. Definitely not right. It could have been worse, but everyone was safe for the time being. The lions had been incapacitated, they just stopped working, almost like they had been put to sleep. Although no one could understand why they had a feeling Haggar had something to do with it. Since the lions were out of commission the castle had taken a pretty bad beating since it was the only thing taking fire. But Allura had managed to open up a wormhole in time to get them all out to the nearest safe planet. The planet was red and barren and almost looked like Mars. It reminded the paladins of home. Especially Lance. Coran located a small village of the alien life of the planet who had agreed to send supplies to help the team, only problem was that the village was about 300 miles out and probably the closest means of help. Shiro decided to send Keith and Lance out to get it. Yeah one of them could have probably done it on their own but they both had worked so hard on that last mission they deserved a break from working. At least that’s what he told them.   
“Tell me why NASA is so obsessed with greek and roman mythology,” Keith asked. Lance, who was lost in thought, didn’t hear what he said.  
“What?” he mumbled, not really caring what he was asking.   
“I mean, they’ve named everything they’ve discovered or made based off of something from greek or roman mythology,” Keith continued.   
It was a thing between them, the other would talk not caring if the other person was really paying attention, but simply for the comfort of having someone else listening. They’d been in the tiny two-person pod for almost two hours our and had about another two hours to go. The pod’s top speed was about 60 miles an hour, or at least that’s how Pidge translated whatever Coran had told them. The pod probably could have gone a lot faster if it wasn’t for the large weight of gravity on the planet. Not like Mars, Lance thought. The day was warm, and the whole planet was covered in the warm light of the sun. It gave Lance a comforting feeling, even though the wind was wild and he had a long ride with Keith ahead of him. “And why is the sun called the Sun, and the moon called the Moon? Why not artemis and apollo?” Keith’s brow was furrowed. “Why is this bothering you so much? NASA’s barely even relevant anymore” Lance was trying not to laugh. Keith’s demeanor changed to more of his usual expressionless self, “It’s not bothering me, I’m bored and you won’t talk to me.” Lance opened him mouth as if he was about to say something but closed it again and slumped into him seat with him arms folded. “Aren’t you the one that never wants to talk to me,” he mumbled quietly, slightly upset, “Just focus on driving this stupid thing, this is taking forever,” He said, this time with a little more authority. “Ok, damn, someone’s wearing their bossy pants today,” Keith said with a smile on his face. “What’s gotten into you? Did you find the happiness stolen from you when you were a child?” Lance said, his face reflecting the fun he was having. Keith wasn’t being boring.  
Keith opened his mouth to fire back when a small explosion came from outside the pod. Lance sighed dramatically, “what did you do now?” Keith had a panicked look on his face, but he obviously wasn’t going to let Lance see that. “I didn’t do anything, I think it came from the pod,” Keith was about to pull over when he realized he didn’t need to pull over because 1) this was a barren planet in the middle of space 2) he wasn’t even on a road??? A second bang came from outside and this time the pod began to stall. “Lance! Do something,” Keith was panicked, which was strange because he was probably the second most collected out of all of the paladins. Second only to Shiro of course. The stress of the last mission had really gotten to him. “You want me to do something? I wasn’t even the one driving!” Lance was losing his cool too but like Keith, he wasn’t going to let him know. “Ok, well put on your helmet. We better go take a look outside,” Keith said as he put his helmet on.   
They both got out of the pod and headed out toward the back where the sound seemed to have come from. “Ouch,” Lance winced looking at the back of the pod. The battery was completely fried, which meant someone either did not charge the pod properly or had overcharged it. “Well the battery’s toast, I don’t even know how to fix it,” Lance didn’t sound optimistic. He didn’t even try to put up a strong front for Keith. They were screwed. Lance began feeling tight and cramped and suffocated, not seeing the way out of their predicament. Their suits weren’t helping. Oh, what Lance would give to take of him helmet and bask in the warm sun like he could back home. Of course if he took him helmet off he would probably suffocate because this planet had almost no atmosphere, but he could dream.   
After about a minute of standing silently Keith spoke up, “can’t we just call the castle to come get us? It’s less than an hour away.”   
“Yeah we could except we have the only working pod with us.” They took the only working pod from the castle and the castle couldn’t come to them until they got back with the supplies they needed to fix it. He kicked the pod’s tire, “well it was the only working pod.” Keith thought for another second. Except he couldn’t really think. He was tired and hungry and oh so stressed out. Maybe whatever Haggar did to the lions had gotten to them too. Lance looked at Keith but saw Keith’s face fall as he couldn’t think of anything. He slumped down next to the pod, sitting with him legs crossed like a small child, letting his hands rest in the red dirt. He became very fixated on a little pebble stuck in the ground. Keith saw the Lance was somehow more distressed than he was, which seemed impossible considering how distressed Keith felt himself. He went inside the pod to call the castle using his comms, but out of sight of Lance. He came back outside a couple minutes later.  
Lance was still sitting in the same position on the ground, swirling his gloved hand around in the dirt. “Coran said they’d try to fix another pod to come get us but it’d take a while plus the time needed to come get us. We’re stuck here for a bit” Keith explained. Lance gave a small nod, still fixated on the dirt. “Come sit inside the pod,” Keith called. Lance looked up at him. He felt so small in front of him. Partly because he was standing up and he was sitting on the ground but also because he should have been the quick thinker in this situation, the one who was supposed to have the solution but he just shut down and left all the problem solving to Keith. He just stared at him for a minute, Keith looked a little confused but stayed patient, calmly looking down at him waiting for a response. Lance spoke slowly, still deciding everything he said, “The castle is about 2 hours out, plus about an hour for them to get a pod working. We’d waste whatever power is left in that time. We can stay out here for a bit,” Lance liked the warmth of the sun. He wanted to stay in it forever. “This way we can also save the internal energy for when it gets colder and sit inside the pod when the sun starts setting.” Keith shrugged and sat down, crisscross applesauce, in front of him. “Well now we have three hours with absolutely nothing to do,” Keith said apathetically. Lance seemed to slump even more. “Which is great because this is the first time I haven’t had anything to do!” Keith continued with a more cheery voice. Normally he hated having nothing to do, but Shiro was right, he was beat. All Keith wanted at this point was a cheeseburger and a nap.  
“Well what do you want to do then?” Lance challenged Keith’s cheery voice with his own. If Keith was going to be so damn optimistic so was he. They played chopsticks for a while which got to be annoying since their fingers were so thickly gloved it was hard to tell which fingers they had up and which fingers they were keeping down. Then they played tic tac toe in the dirt before the wind blew away their game and they gave up out of frustration. “I’m bored and it’s only been 30 minutes,” Keith complained. “You were the one that was so excited about having nothing to do,” Lance countered. “Maybe we should go inside the pod now,” Keith began to get up but Lance put him hand on his knee, trying to keep him down. Keith made a confused face at him but saw the kind of scared look in his eyes and settled back down next to him. Keith put on his brave front once again and decided to that Lance needed him to stay right now. After a while he spoke up again, “tell me a story.” “About what?” Lance decided to humor him. “I don’t know,” he furrowed his brow, “we’ve known each other for almost a year and I still barely know anything about you. And if we’re going to be stuck out here, fighting for the rest of our lives we should at least know each other a little better.” They both paused for a bit. Lance was thinking of something funny to tell Keith, maybe a witty comeback. Keith, however, was trying to get Lance to open up. He had such a warm, open, friendly personality yet he didn’t know anything about him.  
“Tell me about home.”  
Lance’s face dropped. Home was a sensitive topic for Lance. Unlike Keith who had no one besides Shiro left on earth, he loved his family and although space had always been his dream, leaving Earth was the hardest thing he had ever done. He looked up to the sun and imagined taking his helmet off and feeling the breeze and the warm, warm sunlight on him face. He closed him eyes and thought of home. He thought of the last time he was home before he left earth, when he was home from the garrison for Christmas.   
The room was filled with a warm toned light. It was well lit and had a homey feel to it. Occasionally light would flash through the window and it would be gone as fast as it had appeared. The room was filled with mismatched furniture but it all fit together like pieces of a puzzle. He could hear him older brother on the phone in the other room, probably talking to his girlfriend, careful not to let his parents hear him. his younger sisters were sprawled in front of the TV, which was turned down low, because they were all really concentrated on the pictures they were drawing of the characters in the movie. The sound of his parents laughter carried from the kitchen, accompanied by the smell of dinner being cooked. The sound of the ocean, and the sounds of the cars of the rest of his siblings and their families pulling in for Christmas dinner reminded him of how very not alone he was.   
He rambled on and on about earth to Keith and Keith felt as if he came from a different planet than Lance because the way Lance described home was so unlike his own experiences. His stories made him feel so warm and full of light, much like the sun. The both of them had become completely lost in Lance’s world of stories from home, so lost that they hadn’t realized how much time had passed until they saw another pod, with Shiro and Allura inside, approaching them. They hooked up their own pod in tow to Shiro’s pod and sat back inside their own pod while the other pod pulled them towards the alien village, continuing on their mission.   
“Your home life sounds so much better than mine ever did,” Keith sighed, “Coming to space wasn’t really different. The only person I really had left back on earth was Shiro and after he disappeared I was as alone as I could be. I’ve felt more at home up here in space than I had in a long time.” Lance gave him a sad smile. “I miss home like crazy, I feel so alone out here,” Lance replied trying his best not to burst into tears in front of Keith. “You don’t have to feel alone, you’ve got me,” Keith smiled reaching out to grab Lance’s hand. Lance smiled back and laced his fingers in Keith’s. He saw the truth in his words.

**Author's Note:**

> tbh i originally wrote this for my lit class last year but with really different characters and taking place on actual mars lol but rereading it, it's totally a klance fic i was just blind to the possibilities. i rewrote it to fit voltron lol.


End file.
